Here to help: How generative AI is changing the customer service game

Customer expectations are at an all-time high. Whether they’re placing an order, requesting a product exchange, or asking about a billing concern, today’s customer wants an answer—and they want it now.

Traditional AI approaches may be able to answer customer queries quickly (say that 3 times fast), but there’s still a lot they can’t do. Chatbots rely on rule-based systems and traditional machine learning algorithms (or models) to automate tasks and provide predetermined responses.

Generative AI’s got better tricks up its sleeve. AI tech can leverage large language models and deep learning techniques—and use them to understand more complicated requests and offer more natural responses.

Enterprise orgs deal with high customer volume, and they’re particularly pumped to embrace generative AI. That’s because generative AI can do so much more. It understands nuance and can deliver more relevant responses. It can also leverage customer data to provide personalization and a top-tier customer experience. A no-brainer, right?

Taking care of business

Generative AI represents a whole new way for businesses to invest in customer relationships. Here are just 5 of the ways generative AI can help:

1. Conversational search: Customers can get better answers to their questions, thanks to finely tuned language models based on company knowledge bases. And here’s the real game changer: Customers can receive answers in their language of choice.
2. Agent assistance—search and summarization: Generative AI helps customer support agents up their productivity by suggesting automated responses to commonly asked questions. One of our fave ways generative AI can help customer service reps? AI-based summaries that help employees remember key details and policies as they provide products, services, or recommendations.
3. Build assistance: With generated responses and suggestions, employees who create chatbots can use generative AI for content creation and to help with service requests.
4. Call center operations and data optimization: Generative AI can perform repetitive tasks to gather the information needed to enhance the feedback loop within a call center. They do it by summarizing and analyzing complaints, customer journeys, and more.
5. Personalized recommendations: Generative AI takes a look at the history of a customer’s interaction with the brand across platforms to provide them with the info they need.

And that’s just the beginning.

A whole new kind of contact center

With IBM Consulting™, your business can take advantage of an entire suite of generative AI solutions. Wanna automate customer service answers? Check out IBM’s watsonx Assistant, a conversational AI platform designed to help companies overcome the friction of traditional support and deliver *exceptional* customer service. For the most seamless experience, link up with watsonx Orchestrate, which automates and streamlines workflows.

With the rollout of watsonx, IBM’s next-generation AI and data platform, AI is being taken to the next level with 3 powerful components:

• watsonx.ai
• watsonx.data
• watsonx.governance (coming soon!)

Did someone say collaboration? IBM Consulting isn’t rolling out their AI platforms alone. They're working with partners like Salesforce, Amazon, Genesys, Five9, and NICE to help clients make the most of open source and other technologies.

Wait, but how does it work?

Okay, you’re thinking. But what can it do? Here’s an example of generative AI in action:

When Bouygues Telecom joined forces with IBM Consulting, their goal was to transform their call center operations using generative AI capabilities.

Bouygues Telecom has 8m recorded customer–agent convos, but their current customer relationship management software wasn’t cutting the mustard, so to speak. Bouygues Telecom needed more usable data on their customers and a way to process all those customer call transcripts.

Enter: foundation models. IBM used foundation models to summarize calls and update the CRM with actionable insights fast. The best part? Thanks to this innovation, Bouygues Telecom is projected to save over $5m in yearly operational improvements. Talk about ROI.

A future of excellence

Even the most promising new tech comes with questions—and a few concerns. In a 2023 study conducted by the IBM Institute of Business Value, 75% of CEOs surveyed said they believed the organization with the most advanced generative AI will have a competitive advantage. However, these executives were also concerned about navigating risks such as bias, ethics, and security.¹

To help clients succeed with generative AI (and feel confident about it), IBM Consulting recently launched its Center of Excellence (CoE) for generative AI. With 21k skilled data and AI consultants, plus over 40k enterprise engagements, the CoE at IBM is equipped to help your org adopt and scale AI to detect and mitigate risks—and provide education and guidance.

Whether your company is AI-outfitted or you’re curious about ways to modernize your customer service experience, turn to IBM Consulting. Your customers will thank you for it.

1. CEO decision-making in the age of AI, IBM Institute for Business Value, July 2023.